CIRA Annual Report 2007-2008

“ My website showcases mywork as a journalist andblogger and provides easylinks to biographical andprofessional information. Asa writer and journalist with acollection of publications forboth online and printed mediamy dot-ca site allows me toarchive my writing in a singleonline portfolio. My dot-cawebsite allows me to reachan entirely new communityand to inject more of my ownpersonality into my work.”2007–2008 CIRA Annual Report21the performance and response time to dot-ca DNSqueries for computers outside of North America.Anycast employs a distributed cluster architecturewhich makes the DNS system robust: if one node’sequipment should fail, queries are directed to thenearest available node. The additional Anycastnodes also provide a significant protection againstDNS attacks by adding increased capacity (toprotect against ‘flood’ attacks) and a second DNStechnology platform to create a heterogeneousDNS infrastructure that is resistant to a singleattack vector.The Anycast nodes are provided under contractby the experienced DNS service providerNeustar/UltraDNS. CIRA’s decision to contractthe project rather than acquire and maintainthe nodes itself was the result of a time-costanalysis and the desire to rapidly deploy DNSperformance capacity and security capacity inthe most cost-effective and timely manner.IMPROVING THE CORE DNS INFRASTRUCTUREDuring fiscal 2008, three DNS nodes withinCanada received equipment upgrades includingnew servers, routers, and firewalls in keeping withequipment retirement schedules and performanceupgrades, and one new DNS node in Ottawa wasadded. Future projects include replacing the twosites in California.This attention to performance, equipmentupgrades, and the new Anycast deploymentin fiscal 2008 achieved better resiliency,performance, and uniform availability of dot-caDNS. Dot-ca truly has become a global product.COGNOS BUSINESS INTELLIGENCEIn fiscal 2008 CIRA invested in Cognos BusinessIntelligence software. Business Intelligencesoftware consolidates information by collectingand storing organizational data and providinganalytical and reporting mechanisms formeaningful and actionable business metrics.